Stable 73 (Terminal Secrets)
Stable 73 is a location in the radioplay series Terminal Secrets. It appears in the third episode, HUNGER. Experiment & Results Initial Set Up The Stable 73 experiment was intended to create a population of ponies capable of optimizing their use of food resources based on extreme scarcity. It theorized that given enough time the popular, purely democratic government would arrive at the best distribution system for that population. The experiment was set up under the premise that only one of the two food processors was built into the Stable before the war happened. Therefore, with the raw plant materials fed to it by their gardens, they only had half as much food for the 1000 inhabitants. From there, the first Overmare was tasked with implementing a voting system whereby members of the Stable could submit and vote on policies for how the food was to be distributed. Otherwise, the food processor was hardwired to distribute food to the inhabitants via a "random" number system. The initial democratic votes were to benefit the foals, to make sure they were fed as well as feasible. Food preference for mares of all ages soon followed. Food bowl distribution was quantified by number of days per week an individual would eat. Once the policies settled, the foals and mares would eat 5 days per week. Upon receiving their cutie marks, colts would drop down to 3 days per week. This policy had drastic consequences. After three generations, the death gap between the sexes had increased to 25 years with mares vastly outliving the stallions. This also vastly decreased the number of healthy males who could make it to breeding age, creating a genetic bottleneck. Inbreeding is an eventuality in an isolated population, but the food policies vastly accelerated that decline. Even with polygamy common, more and more dwellers began to suffer serious physical and mental deformities. Even with all this, the population had only reduced down to 900 inhabitants. The dwellers eventually were swayed by a eugenics policy to prevent the seriously deformed from breeding. While voluntary sterilization had been available from the beginning, it soon became mandatory for those afflicted with serious genetic problems. Many tried to resist, but the Stable had remained sealed under the assumption that to open the door was instant death for everyone. Over the years, several dwellers tried to do it anyway. Single Foal Policy The Overmare at the time was particularly zealous. As a change from her predecessors she seems to relish implementing the draconian policies. It was around her time that the Single Foal Policy was introduced as well. It was now illegal for anyone to have more than one child. In all cases of violation, both parents would be forcibly sterilized. In many cases, the fetus would be terminated as well. One of the few cases of exception were a pair of siblings named Kali and Thistle. After the death of their mother during the hysterectomy, Thistle vowed to go into medicine to prevent that kind of death from happening to anyone else. Instead, he would become a butcher, being forced to carry out many terminations against the will of the mother. The trauma ate away at him until the point where he discovered that Kali, his baby sister, was pregnant with her second child. The Overmare at the time, selected by her zealous predecessor, was the opposite. She was so paralyzed with fear and guilt, she could do nothing else but carry on the policies already in place. She was particularly smitten by Thistle, who took advantage of this to steal her Overmare password. It was there that he, Kali, and her husband Milliamp discovered the truth that there never was a food shortage to begin with. The "randomization" of the food processor's default mode was to deliver adequate nutrients to all inhabitants based on their health and conditional needs. The dark truth was that instead of trusting the machine's rationing, they used their voting power to benefit their own selfish interests as much as they could. The Stable-Tec policy in the Overmare document said that explicitly informing the population of the truth would cause the food processor to shut down. Most Overmares were terrified, all believing that the surface would mean instant death. This was a belief that Thistle and Kali had doubted for a long time, but the fears of the majority overruled those that dissented. Opening The Door Before they could confront the Overmare, they found her dead. She had intentionally overdosed on sleeping pills, no longer able to bear the guilt. In the aftermath, Kali was able to replace her. She began influencing the population about opening the door to the surface, that it was worth the risk. Once they did, while confronting the heightened background radiation, they found that everything was still livable. Stable 73 had been built into a rural mountainside, and some of the land had begun growing wild crops such as wheat. S.T.E.L.L.A. determined, after some pleading by Butterfly Stitch, that opening the door was not a violation of the parameters of the experiment. Kali taking the risk and swaying the wishes of the population was the kind of positive results that could be hoped for. Because of this, Stable 73 did not suffer the same fate as Stable 81. Following the end of the Single Foal Policy and forced sterilizations, Thistle gave up medicine completely. He refocused his scientific mind on optimizing the new wild crop yields they had discovered on the surface. In the months that followed, Kali and Milliamp would discover many more secrets hidden within the stable, most notably the listening devices hidden throughout the walls. Because of the lack of response on the Installation Command line, they assumed Stable-Tec's headquarters was bombed during the war. Regardless, the presence of the hidden microphones disturbed them, and as Overmare Kali decided to tell the population. The public were disturbed by the truth, most wishing to leave the Stable completely. Following a vote, they agreed to let Milliamp cut out the microphones. As promised, disabling the microphones set off a loud alarm and the food processor wiped its internal memory, destroying its ability to function. Following that, the citizens built up a small settlement at the bottom of the hillside. With the help of a mysterious "Wasteland Survival Guide" found on their doorstep, they were able to quickly connect to the outside world. outside of the Stable. The stable door is barely visible from their village. Few ever entered the Stable again, as most of its useful supplies were removed when Kali led their exodus with Thistle and her family. One day, years later, the Stable door was found to be locked. Even with Kali's password, it never opened again. While their son Rusty has a few memories of the inside, Kali and Milliamp's daughter is blissfully unaware. Notable Residents * Thistle * Kali * Milliamp * Stable 73 Overmare Quotes * "After their first use of active population control, the Stable population were quite satisfied by the results. The population as a whole were reduced down to 750 ponies. Every citizen was now receiving food at least 4 days per week. They realized that effectively reducing their numbers had to start at the beginning... Thus, the Overmare at that time, with the Stable’s support, enacted sweeping changes." - STELLA * "The stable dwellers selected these penalties by popular vote... This is democracy." - STELLA * "And as Overmare, I promise that this new age of exploration will mean great things for all of us... We will no longer live in fear of what horrors the outside world might hold... Because of brave doctors and scientists like Doctor Thistle, we have confirmed that the radiation level on the surface has dropped within safe levels. Like them, we need to take steps and be brave ourselves. It is not that we need to make unpleasant decisions... It is that we need to be strong enough to make the right decisions. Just as we march away from the fears of the Old World, we will also march away from horrors of the Single Foal Policy. We will find a way to survive, and this time, we will do it the right way... learning from the sins of our ancestors." - Kali Behind The Scenes * The Stable 73 story was inspired by the prompt given to SkyBolt when the original writer had to drop out. The premise was "only half of the stable could eat each day." This manifested in a recreation of the forced starvations and real life policies in the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China. * The number designation was chosen based on a set of Stable numbers SkyBolt originally asked to be set aside for Confessions of a Wasteland Pony. When earlier Terminal Secrets versions were being considered, he asked for numbers 71 through 80 be set aside for Confessions stories. Category:EAST Corp Productions Category:Terminal Secrets Category:Stables (Terminal Secrets) Category:Locations (Terminal Secrets)